Entrepreneurial opportunities

London
– PeoplePerHour.com reports rapid rise in the number of young people
setting up their own businesses and creating their own job
opportunities, following the release of the Labour Market Statistics.Europe’s
biggest online business marketplace – reported a 89 percent rise in
young people joining the site in the last three months compared with
this time last year. Most admit that the tough jobs market – the
toughest in a generation - is forcing them to create their own
businesses and set up as freelance consultants.The
most entrepreneurial area is London and the south east, with 56 per
cent of new sign-ups coming from this area, with the Midlands and
Yorkshire coming in second and third respectively with 11 percent and
eight percent of the total new sign ups.The
figures also show that "doing it themselves” is paying off. Figures
from the site show that there has been a 101 percent increase in
earnings by young people in the last three months signing up to the
site compared to this time last year."Our
figures show that more young people are having to set up their own
businesses or become freelance consultants than ever before,” said
Xenios Thrasyvoulou, CEO and Founder of PeoplePerHour.com."The
jobs market today isn’t creating enough new jobs for Britain’s youth
and it looks set to get worse with a bleak economic outlook. Yet rather
than giving up, many young people are working harder to create their
own opportunities."Our
research shows that more young people are joining PeoplePerHour.Com to
set up their own businesses, looking for work and creating work for
others. The high unemployment figures may well go down in history as
the cause of a generation of young entrepreneurs.Case studies:Young woman wins multi-national clients 21-year-old
Sarah hasn't let the tough jobs market nor her two young boys get in
the way of her career. Realizing the tough jobs market, she set up her
own marketing company and is expanding at a rapid rate."I
have around 16 clients at the moment ranging from small micro
businesses to large multinational companies. I am expanding fast and
have taken on new national and international clients.”UK's first mobile phone contract swap serviceSpotting
a gap in the market, 23-year-old entrepreneur Daniel is set to launch
the country's only service that allows people to get out of short-term
mobile phone contracts - without incurring hefty termination fees - by
transferring them onto other users. Daniel - who uses PeoplePerHour.com
to outsource IT / web design work.

Virtual Jukebox

22-year-old Adam runs a virtual jukebox business with results that are real."Our
business is called The Virtual Jukebox, we sell exactly what this is -
a virtual jukebox. Essentially it's an internet radio player that
receives requests from SMS and mobiles. We sell it to pubs and bars
around the UK,” Adam says."So
given we offer a virtual service, it made sense to keep it a virtual
business. We started about six months ago, and it’s funded from
personal investment so clearly it was in our interest to keep costs low."We've
used outsourcing throughout each step of the way to get us to where we
are, without the need for any staff overhead. This includes branding
and design in the early stages, through to telesales once the product
was launched. The whole business was launched and now running so far
without having to employ a single member of staff.”

Designing his own future

Despite
having design skills, John has struggled to find a job. In such a tough
jobs market, he has set up on his own business through
PeoplePerHour.com and now had a successful web design and development
business.‘You don’t need a formal education’22-year-old
Daniel Poynton is a self taught digital illustrator, graphic designer
and art director. He was concerned about the jobs market and the high
price of going to university that he set up his own business as soon as
he could. He doesn’t think it is necessary to go to university and has
used his entrepreneurial spirit to teach himself advanced graphic
design to give himself a head start on his contemporaries and found
work at PeoplePerHour.Com."You
don’t need a formal education for breaking into design, especially with
the rise in tuition fees around the corner. When it comes to
design/illustration/photography, anything creative really, teaching
yourself is the way to go, there is so much information already
available to you on the internet, and being self taught helps you
develop your own original style."Being
self-taught is not just great for freelancing either, design and
advertising agencies would be much more interested in employing someone
with an exceptional portfolio over a someone with a degree, it’s the
work you produce that gets you a job, and you don’t need a certificate
to prove it.Animated about working globally24-year-old Jamie Stockley couldn’t get a job so worked in Manchester as a freelancer art worker after graduating in Animation.Jamie
found a lot of work initially. First for the Chapman Entertainment
studios, making props for Rotary the racing car and then Peter Kay’s
Children in Need song. He then helped build the set of the new Cbeebies
program RaaRaa and worked for Mackinnon and Saunders Puppet making for
Tim Burtons Frankenweenie. "PeoplePerHour.com
has helped me fall back on my creative skills I have gained over the
years. I have now won worked through the site as an illustrator.
PeoplerPerHour.com has helped bridge the gap. As I live in the North,
PeoplePerHour.com enables me to be in direct contact with clients in
London and all over the world.Student illustrating the futureAdrian
isn't overly optimistic about his employment prospects come the summer
when he completes his degree course in illustration from the University
of Plymouth.

"The market is very weak and I know I'm going to struggle to find a job," he predicted.Instead,
the 28-year-old student is using the power of the web to win work and
kick-start his career. "You have to get out there and get as many
contacts as you can," he said. "People aren't going to knock on your
door. Even if you don't get the job you're bidding for, you get your
name known. Having a good portfolio is the most important thing - if
you can't show that you've got any experience of working within the
industry it's that much harder to get any work."www.PeoplePerHour.com